Mumbai Indians head coach Mark Boucher backed the franchise’s decision to name the returning Hardik Pandya as captain for the forthcoming Indian Premier League season, replacing their most successful leader in Rohit Sharma.

The former South African stumper said it was “purely a cricketing decision” and the move was viewed as a transition phase for the five-time IPL champions, with all titles won under the leadership of Rohit.

“I think it was purely a cricketing decision. We saw the window period to get Hardik back as a player. For me it’s a transition phase. A lot of people don’t understand in India, people get quite emotional. But you know you take the emotions away from it. I think it’s just more of a cricketing decision that was made and I do think it is going to bring the best out of Rohit as a person as a player. Just let him go out and enjoy and score some good runs,” Boucher said.

“I mean one of the things I have spoken about is when you arrive at the IPL and he (Chris Morris) will be able to tell you as well that there’s a lot of stuff going on, there’s photoshoots and this and that and a lot of emphasis is not actually on the cricket. It’s more about the advertising and all that sort of stuff,” added Boucher.

Boucher also didn’t mince his words in pointing out that the burden of captaincy was affecting Rohit’s performance with the bat.

“One thing I did pick up with Ro (Rohit) is that he is a fantastic guy. I mean he’s been captaining for ages and he’s done really well for Mumbai Indians. Now he also leads India as well. It is that he walks into a place and there’s just cameras in it and he’s so busy and he hasn’t had probably the best couple of seasons of late with the bat but he’s done well as a captain,” he said.

“And I just thought you know when we’re speaking with the whole Mumbai Indians group, we thought that maybe this is the opportunity for him to step as a player. We believe he got some great value to add and just go out there and actually enjoy it without the hype of being a captain. He is still going to captain India so that hype’s gonna be there but when he steps into the IPL maybe just taking that extra bit of pressure off him as a captain an maybe we get the best out of Rohit Sharma.

“We want to see him playing with a smile on his face, spending a bit of time with his beautiful family.”

Boucher also hailed Pandya’s leadership skills after the all-rounder led the Gujarat Titans win the 2021 title on debut and also finished runner-up the next season.

“He is a Mumbai Indians boy. He went to other franchise, won the title in first year, ended up runner-up in his second year. So there’s obviously some very good leadership skills as well,” Boucher said.